Lippy on School Performance Audit

Regarding your Feb. 21 editorial, "Commissioners' Pathetic Performance" before the House Ways and Means committee, asking for authority to allow county commissioners, in cooperation with the Board of Education, to conduct a performance audit on the schools' activities:

I would never question your right and duty to criticize me publicly. However, it is fitting, in teacher's parlance, to go "over it again and again until you get it right," as far as the facts are concerned.

My paraphrasing a Supreme Court justice's statement on pornography was made in a more light-hearted manner than you imply. You had to be there.

You left out any mention of my report that the complexity of defining just what constituted a performance audit was tossed about by the best brains of the county and the Board of Education for many hours before a mutually satisfactory wording was achieved. I also used the example of deciding how many assistant principals or superintendents the system should have for efficient management would come under a performance audit survey.

You said when Del. Ray Huff of Anne Arundel County pointed out that the commissioners could use their control over the education department's budget as a "hammer," the commissioners should have responded that using that tool without any analysis would be akin to banging away at one's thumb. Where were you?

We not only agree on this, but use almost identical language: I told the delegate, "Mr. Huff, I am not an educator nor a school administrator. I can't run a school system and never attempted to do so; because of my ignorance, I well might wind up hitting myself over the head with that hammer."

The school system and the commissioners have done well in handling the county's money, but just on the basis of the sheer volume of funds alone that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the first time The Sun has ever endorsed a performance audit?

Perhaps we should let the people themselves judge how pathetic my performance was. . . . [This was my] statement:

"Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, the bill before you enables Carroll County to conduct performance audits on the major component of our budget. This legislation simply gives us, at the local level, the same ability that you have with respect to agencies you fund. We see this as an opportunity to help you and us in better evaluating and controlling our educational expenditures. Last year, education comprised approximately 53 percent of our total budget, but our contribution was only a part of the total education budget. The state also contributed in excess of 40 percent to the total. If this were an executive branch agency, your legislative auditors would examine how well your money was spent. If this were one of our agencies, our

internal auditors would examine how well our money was spent. As it stands now, there exists no system to have either you or us engage auditors to make that determination. You should know and we should know how well $130 million is spent. This is a local bill. Our delegation supports this bill. The people of Carroll County have clearly expressed their desire to have us know how well their tax dollars have been spent.

"We are now cooperating with the Board of Education to have a performance audit conducted, but the negotiations over which accounts and programs should be audited have taken over a year. We do not seek this legislation adversarially toward the Board of Education, but to institute a check and balance into our fiscal program similar to what you have using your legislative auditors."

Elmer Lippy

Westminster

The writer is a Carroll County commissioner.

Health Care

Recently, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett has been very critical of the proposed Clinton health plan.

Although I agree that the president's legislative recommendation deserves scrutiny, I commend him for offering a comprehensive plan to address an important situation. It stands in stark contrast to the complacency of the last 12 years while Republicans held the presidency. And I disagree with Rep. Bartlett's contention that the health care system is in basically good shape and needs only fine-tuning.

As the parents of four children, my wife, Ann, and I frequently come into contact with doctors, hospitals and emergency rooms. What parent doesn't? How often have we asked ourselves during cold and flu season if a child's earache will subside without a $28 visit to the doctor? How frequently have we skipped the $18 recheck when everything seemed fine? How many years have gone by when we just missed the $250 deductible on each family member? Too many Americans, even those with very good health insurance, ask themselves the same questions month after month and year after year.

Thirty-seven million Americans lack health insurance altogether. More than 50 million Americans are without health insurance some time during the year.

As the son of a mother who fought a successful eight-year battle with cancer, I understand the value of high-tech and specialized medical practice well applied. . . .

When the General Accounting Office says we could save $65 billion in overhead costs to insurance companies, I think most of us know it is true. . . . The American health care system has many strengths -- world-class research, immediate availability of the latest medical equipment and procedures and world-class specialists of every description, among other attributes. But our resources are not distributed well. . . .

So I agree with President Clinton that there are many questions ** to be addressed, and the relationships between them necessitate our dealing with them all at once to contain rising costs and to ensure the availability of quality health care for all our citizens.

During this debate, the key question will be can we recognize the weakness of the system and bring about the changes we ought to make, or will we, as Bartlett seems to prefer, believe that if we just leave everything alone, it will all be OK? . . .

Don DeArmon

Frederick

The writer is a Democratic candidate for the 6th Congressional District seat.

Fairness Doctrine

Within the next couple of weeks, our senators and congressmen will have the opportunity to vote on the "Fairness Doctrine" (S.333 and H.R. 1985.) Actually, this is the new Fairness Doctrine.

We had such regulation from 1949 to 1987. It was supposed to give groups of people with sharply different views a chance to air those views on the airwaves with "equal time." As the Federal Communication Commission wrote in its own 1985 Fairness Report, "It is known that two presidential administrations promoted active campaigns to utilize the 'Fairness Doctrine' to undermine the independence of the broadcast press and that a third at least considered the implementation of such a program." . . .

During the Kennedy and Johnson years, radio stations that broadcast anti-administration viewpoints were inundated with "Fairness Doctrine" complaints as part of a comprehensive strategy to shut off all conservative opposition.

Liberal administrations did not exclusively use the misnamed doctrine to their political advantage. As the Wall Street Journal reported, "the Nixon administration used it to torment left-wing broadcasters, and the Kennedy administration used it as a political weapon." (Sept. 1, 1993).

Until the repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine" by the FCC in 1987, government politicians and bureaucrats, pulling FCC strings, harassed, intimidated and pressured station owners into neutral, pabulum-like non-controversial, milquetoast-type programming with the Fairness Doctrine's loss of license penalty hanging over their heads. . . . Before withdrawing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, the FCC itself concluded that "the regulations hindered free speech, and therefore contradicted the Fairness Doctrine's purpose."

So why in the world are we facing the possible re-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine in 1994? Because the administration and many members of Congress just don't like the widespread interest in public policy matters that talk radio generates. When we know too much about what's going on, we become too involved and we, the people, end up with too much clout. . . .

Let's opt for freedom of choice, not censorship. There is plenty of programming on both the liberal and conservative sides to choose from; having the government dictate programming is dangerous tampering with freedom of speech. . . .

Dawn E. Knox

Taneytown

Get Drunks Off Streets of Westminster

I'm curious. Have we reached a point where the majority of your readers view the mayor as being the problem in downtown Westminster, for trying to discourage drunkards from congregating there? Or do most view the problem as being the ready availability of cheap alcohol, and those who abuse it?

Is the mayor wrong for suggesting that the drunks should clean up their acts?

After all, it is not as if their situation is hopeless. Local, state and federal governments -- as well as numerous charitable organizations -- have gone to great lengths to provide both detoxification and rehabilitation programs for alcohol abusers.

Is it asking too much when the mayor asks them to grasp the hands being offered, and thereby cease being public nuisances?

Is it expecting too much when the mayor asks the operators of liquor stores to voluntarily stop selling cheap fortified wines high in alcohol, such as 40 proof MD 2020, which are on the shelves because they appeal to the down and out?

I don't believe that I've asked too much.

If there is one underlying weakness beneath all of our major societal ills, it is our failure to insist that personal responsibility be shouldered by all.

Reacting to public drunkenness with a "live and let live, it's not so bad" philosophy makes sense only if we don't give a hoot about the conditions in which we live.

Decent people deserve to walk their streets without passing through a gauntlet of unsavory, and sometimes intimidating, drunks.

So to those quick to criticize while failing to put forward workable alternatives, I simply say that's how we fashioned a nation awash in violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, public indecency and the like.

Some public officials, while open to potshots, prefer to try something, anything, to make things even a little bit better.

W. Benjamin Brown

Westminster

The writer is mayor of Westminster.